Balanchine Inside Out

It is always exciting when the New York City Ballet kicks off a season with an all-Balanchine program. However, the Spring Season’s opening quartet of Balanchine ballets—all strong in their own right—didn’t hang together as well as some other combos. “Apollo” (1928), “Ballo della Regina” (1978), “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux” (1960), and “Chaconne” (1976) are not exactly similar, but they have a lot of overlap in costuming and bright, presentational bravura. “Ballo” and “Tchai Pas,” which shared the middle bracket of the program, especially doubled down on chiffon skirts, peasant blouses, syncopated pointework and fouettés. With the addition of an overlong See the Music lecture on Friday the 25^th, either one would have sufficed.

Performance

New York City Ballet: “Apollo” / “Ballo della Regina” / “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux” / “Chaconne” by George Balanchine

Place

David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center, New York, NY, April 2025

Words

Faye Arthurs

Mira Nadon and Chun Wai Chan in George Balanchine’s “Apollo.” Photograph by Erin Baiano

But though other Balanchine lineups have provided more variety, any cluster of his dances offers compelling storylines. To see the hippy, partnered passé lean-out in the “Chaconne” pas de deux after the hippy, partnered fifth position lean-out at the close of the “Ballo” pas de deux was interesting—and a connection I wouldn’t have easily made without their programming contiguity. And though those ballets shared that unique move, they contained pas de deux that were the opposite in almost every other sense. In the “Ballo” pas, the woman hardly needs her partner until that last leaning pose; in the first pas in “Chaconne,” the woman hardly holds her own weight at all, everything is dependently draped or teetering way off-balance.

“Apollo,” the oldest dance on the docket by 50 years, looked the most modern—as it so often does. It was way ahead of its time, and it’s apparently still ahead of ours. Thrillingly, there is a new leggy trio of muses in town: Mira Nadon, Miriam Miller, and Emily Kikta. They gave the last stellar Amazon cast—Maria Kowroski, Teresa Reichlen, and Sara Mearns—a real run for their money. Miller, as Polyhymnia, took a soft approach in her solo. She deflated with ladylike despair when she ran out of poetry, where many interpreters appear to convulse in pain. Kikta was clear and bold in her solo. They were a strong pairing in their pointing finale duet. Nadon was a tremendous Terpsichore. She made every step incisive yet utterly natural, including the little finale solo which often looks clunky on people. And, as she often does, she used her gaze to great effect. The way she tracked Apollo in her solo and in their pas de deux was almost predatory, like she was daring him to test her powers.

Chun Wai Chan, in the title role, did not exactly take the bait. He was a beautiful Apollo, but he played it too safe. He was handsome, strong, and technically assured, but he didn’t take any real risks. He thrashed with gusto in his first solo, but he was playacting at wildness rather than truly pushing himself there. His opening pose said it all: his arm in high fifth was perfectly rounded and placed. The effect was a tad limp, static.

Tiler Peck and Roman Mejia in George Balanchine’s “Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux.” Photograph by Erin Baiano

Yesterday, at the NYPL for the Performing Arts, the George Balanchine Foundation honored the famous School of American Ballet teacher Stanley Williams (1925-1997) in a series of events. Daniel Duell (former NYCB dancer and current Artistic Director of Ballet Chicago) explained how “Stanley’s methodologies generated invisible energy,” which had me thinking about Chan’s Apollo. Williams insisted on a constant, internal muscular striving which complemented Balanchine’s energetic style. This tension is necessary for the role of Apollo, even when he is standing still with an arm in high fifth. His drama must come from the battle waged within his own body. Apollo’s thrill at being born into godliness and testing his newfound powers must be broadcast foremost through kinetic movement quality, not acting. Duell explicated that emotion was inherent in the technique, saying it was “a turning inside out of body, so therefore soul.” Chan did not get this crucial Balanchine training, but he has everything else going for him. Perhaps he can watch some old Williams classes at the library. I keep rooting for him to find that electric charge that will take his dancing from beautiful to vital.

There were lots of City Ballet veterans on the program, however, to show off the Balanchine dynamism. Tiler Peck and Roman Mejia practically emit sparks in “Tchai Pas” these days. Peck has been toying with the chiaroscuro of this dance for a while, and it is so fun to watch her manipulate the steps to suit her whims. This season, she takes the beginning of the pas de deux extremely gently, softly floating down to her knee in the opening diagonal of partnered pirouettes. (In the past she’s hit those kneels like a button.) But this new tactic is in service to creating contrast with her punchiness at the snare drum climax.

Peck comically pulled some steps out like they were taffy. I chuckled when she teased out a transitional low piqué developpé front for an eternity before dashing off to prep for a more substantive step. Another humorous bait and switch happened at the end of her fouettés. She invented the speedy head-roll out of these turns that so many practitioners copy now, but lately she is oh-so-slowly rotating through fourth before running like mad to the corner. It’s a hilarious changeup because it is surprising on top of being goofily decadent. I wonder if the rest of the ballet world will incorporate this reversal too. Mejia plays it all straighter, though he also possesses a perfect marriage of technical acumen and musical instinct. The pair got four curtain calls, deservedly so.

Sara Mearns and Tyler Angle in George Balanchine’s “Chaconne.” Photograph by Erin Baiano

Peck and Mejia were not bothered by conductor Nicolette Fraillon’s speedy tempi after the first intermission, but they were the only ones. Fraillon ran long in her “Ballo” See the Music lecture, and she kept the pacing brisk afterwards to make up for it. There were many problems with this. The first was that the lecture was simply too long, though Fraillon was a charmingly humble speaker. And though I enjoyed some of her factoids, it was overall too rudimentary for a City Ballet crowd—who, for example, probably know the difference between major and minor chords. Also, Fraillon focused only on the history of Verdi’s composition instead of discussing Balanchine’s innovative treatment of it, which was odd. And she wasn’t very clear about that either. Telling the audience that people only ever want to see men do big jumps in solos is a bizarre statement after all the practically jump-less solos in “Apollo.”

The biggest problem, however, was that Fraillon’s catchup timing rushed the dancing. This was particularly problematic in “Chaconne,” which is stately yet jam-packed with steps. Sara Adams and Harrison Coll sparkled in their tricky pas de deux anyway, though it looked like a challenge to eke out all the swift bent-leg attitude promenades. Sara Mearns looked less thrilled in her many fiendish “Chaconne” solos, almost appearing to want to throw in the towel a few times. But she and Tyler Angle were a vision of regal beauty in their two pas de deux. When they wandered in from opposite corners in the Elysian opening, their mature authority was comforting.

Mearns hunched over at times in this hair-down, reeling pas, but this was the place to experiment with casualness and darker tones. And that approach progressed into a nice coming-out-of-a-shell narrative with the polished, baroque pas de deux which followed. It was not a good choice when she let her arms relax and dangle at her sides in the big, classical finale, however. That is the kind of thing that threatens to bring the temple down in ruins. Conversely, Megan Fairchild, pushed to the speedy brink in her last ever “Ballo della Regina,” smiled bigger when things didn’t exactly go her way. She first danced this taxing role as a student in her SAB Workshop performances, and the way she met this final outing with joy and professionalism was a triumph.

Megan Fairchild in George Balanchine’s “Ballo della Regina.” Photograph by Erin
Baiano

Faye Arthurs

Faye Arthurs is a former ballet dancer with New York City Ballet. She chronicled her time as a professional dancer in her blog Thoughts from the Paint. She graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in English from Fordham University. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and their sons.

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